* Improved indexing of names on generated websites

[craigmollekin]

Hi,

It would be nice if on the Index page, surnames could be grouped by surname, rather than just one long list of names. So, for example, if I had 150 people with the surname of Jackson, they would grouped under Jackson which could then be expanded rather than listing every single Jackson in the surname index list.

Kind Regards,

Craig Mollekin

[tatewise]

That might be an option I could add to my Improve Website or CD DVD HTML Plugin.

Presumably that technique would only apply where more than one Individual has the same Surname?
Or would you want the threshold greater than that, so only if more than say 3 or 9 had the same Surname would they collapse into a sub-list?

[craigmollekin]

If you do and I ever meet you, I'd buy you a pint

Having lots of names means there is a fair bit of scrolling.

Craig

[Valkrider]

Mike

If this is a global request for feature suggestions

A lot of one-namer's are using Family Historian and so any change that you do in this space would be good. What would be the nirvana would be something like to slit them down into first name initials as well as surnames. I have over 2200 names in my UK datafile and of those in excess of 1500 share the same surname so anything to break that down into manageable chunks would be great. Once I start researching France in earnest then my problem will grow exponentially as the name is fairly common there being much rarer in the UK and US where I am concentrating my research at the moment.

To date I haven't used the website generator in anger because of this limitation publishing a limited set of data via data tables on my website. This would push me into looking at doing something different with my website.

TIA or if too difficult / no interest I quite understand.

[craigmollekin]

...and I just realised that I didn't answer your question, Mike.

I would prefer all names to sit in expandable links. I think have some grouped and some not might look a tad untidy/unusual? Preferably surnames could be listed horizontally rather than just a vertical list, so as to save space and make it look neater.

Craig

[tatewise]

I have moved this to the Plugin Discussions forum since my Plugin will probably offer a solution well before FH.
I suspect it will only be on the wish list of those few users who create websites with large numbers of Individuals, so little incentive for Calico Pie to implement it.

I know it might be possible to create all manner of drop-down lists and pop-up windows to expand Surname groups, but that would take me much longer to implement, as I suspect it requires Java Script instead of plain HTML.

Here is my proposed scheme:
Keep the current Index of Names page exactly as it is because it is familiar and consistent to all websites.
Optionally in the Plugin, create a new Index of Surnames page on a SURNAMES tab.
This would be similar to the Index of Names page without all the Individual names, leaving just a collapsed list of Surnames on the left.
Clicking on any Surname would jump to the first Individual with that Surname on the Index of Names page.

Further enhancements along the lines suggested above could include:
Where a large number of Individuals have the same Surname then include their first initial in the Index of Surnames page. e.g. SMITH, A then SMITH, B and SMITH, C, etc.
Where several adjacent Individuals all have different Surnames then form a group of the first and last Surname in the Index of Surnames page. e.g. JAMES - JONES

I am not sure about the listing horizontally suggestion, but that may be a future refinement.

Comments please...

[Valkrider]

Mike

That sounds good to me.

[Jane]

I have found a javascript filter which might help, in adding a filter, I will have a play and see if it could work and post a sample which Mike might like to consider adding if it works OK.

[craigmollekin]

This all looks promising.

A 'surnames' tab would be a superb start though.

Craig

[Jane]

Enhance _nameindex.fh_lua

(4.84 KiB) Downloaded 192 times

I have done a basic plugin to add a filter to the index page, it's not a freestanding plugin as I have hard coded the path to the files, so BEFORE trying it please change the two first lines to the paths you need, as my hope is Mike might like to add the function into his plugin.

[tatewise]

I have had a quick play with that Jane, but although it is creating _newindex.html with modified HTML tags it does not work.

Can you post an example of the HTML structure that should be produced.

[Jane]

2014-06-09_231357.png (7.52 KiB) Viewed 11143 times

Strange it was working fine for me on Chrome and Firecfox

I have attached the original page and the newindex page from the Sample project.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ckqjhw0wt6uwd ... index.html

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hv9achydiyp4k ... index.html

[tatewise]

OK, got it working now, thanks.

[tatewise]

Thanks to Jane's filter script I have a prototype Plugin for you to try.
Please backup your website files before running Plugin, just in case!
Plugin V2.4 is on my OneDrive at Improve Website or CD DVD HTML.

Run the Plugin and Browse to the Project ... website folder.
On its Index of Names tab click the Adjust the ... 'Index of Names' ... button and even with default options should insert the search filter.

It may still need a few refinements, but does also fix a few other problems such as images with the popup=None option, and URL in user supplied javascript.

[craigmollekin]

Hi,

I’ve just tried this out and I must admit that it’s pretty damn good The search function is brilliant and exceeded my expectations.

There are a couple of points though that I’d like to raise:-

1) It is brilliant how it searches for names. However, the way it searches might add confusion. For example, if somebody is searching for ‘Alfred Thomas Price’ but only enters ‘Alfred Price’, no search result is returned. Perhaps it would be better to add some description/instruction next to the search box informing the visitor to only search for one name (surname or given). I had this problem on another site that I created. Or just limit the search so it only includes surnames OR make it so that the full name doesn’t have to be entered in order to yield a result, so ‘Alfred Price’ would return ‘Alfred Thomas Price’.

2) If there is text in the search box, it is not possible to click on the other surname letters in the Index. This might cause confusion; so maybe an instruction to the visitor informing them that they have to clear the box before clicking on the Index letters?

I can’t get the no pop issue to disappear though using the plugin. Which option should be selected?

But I’m very impressed so far and here is a working example of it: http://mollekin.net/familytree/war/index.html

Craig

[tatewise]

Thank you for the feedback, I should be able to incorporate some of those suggestions.

1. The search filter looks for any consecutive text that matches. So to match ALFRED, Thomas Price you need to enter alfred, thomas or thomas price but NOT Alfred Price. It is case insensitive, but note the comma after the surname.
2. OK
3. The manual workaround for the popup=None problem has not changed. But I discovered the Plugin only worked correctly if an actual popup mode had been chosen in the wizard, and disrupted the webpages with popup=None. The Plugin now does nothing when popup=None, but I could get it to automatically create the lytebox.js file and insert <script type="text/javascript" src="lytebox.js"></script> in the <head>.
4. The Plugin Hyperlinks / Text tab should no longer upset your StatCounter Code at the end of the <body>.

[tatewise]

Jane, I have a few observations on the javascript technique.
Firstly, thank you, it works really well, and I have enhanced its Plugin use.
(1)
In the _nameindex.html there are inner <ul> and </ul> unordered list tags that are invalid within the outer unordered list according to my HTML Tidy tool and the W3 XHTML Validator. They should be <li><ul> and </ul></li>.
(2)
The list items had class="item" but this did not seem to be employed, and on removal apparently had no effect.
Am I mistaken?
(3)
At https://developers.google.com/speed/lib ... ide#jquery it suggests that the jquery.min.js has later versions: 2.1.1, 2.1.0, 2.0.3, 2.0.2, 2.0.1, 2.0.0, 1.11.1, 1.11.0, 1.10.2, 1.10.1, 1.10.0, 1.9.1, 1.9.0, 1.8.3, 1.8.2, 1.8.1, 1.8.0, 1.7.2, 1.7.1, 1.7.0, 1.6.4, 1.6.3, 1.6.2, 1.6.1, 1.6.0, 1.5.2, 1.5.1, 1.5.0, 1.4.4, 1.4.3
But I tried v2.1.1 and it did not work - why have you proposed v1.4.2 ?

[Jane]

1. Just add them I did the first process manually and then wrote the Lua so I probably just missed them.

2. I put in the "item" in case is was useful if more customisation was needed on the item lists or you perhaps wanted to hide the full names and just show the surnames for example.

3. I picked up the script complete as a sample. It works with 1.4, some of the syntax for jQuery 2 is different to that for JQuery 1 and it's not backwards compatible, I did not want to spend time changing the syntax to use a newer jQuery when it worked as it was.

[tatewise]

OK, thanks, that is much as I suspected.
In the next Plugin version I have restructured _nameindex.html by using float:left; width:??% style for the index columns.
This is a much neater style, has only one outer unordered list, and does not hide anything except the Alphabetic Hyperlinks at the top.
When the option to include RecId & Idents adds a third column then this can be filter searched too.

[tatewise]

An updated Plugin V2.4 is on my OneDrive at Improve Website or CD DVD HTML.

Run the Plugin and Browse to the Project ... website folder.

On its Index of Names tab click the Adjust the ... 'Index of Names' ... button and even with default options should insert the search filter box.
This incorporates suggestions from above:

• Better description of how to use the search filter box.
• Hides the alphabetic hyperlinks when the filter is in use.
• Keeps original index column structure when filter is in use.

On its Image Popups tab there now is the None - popups completely inhibited option.

• If you had chosen wizard popup option None then this option fixes the known problem.
  You do not have to include the lytebox.js advanced <head> line nor its file.
  However, the other Plugin popup options have no effect.
• If you had chosen any other wizard popup option, then all the Plugin options work including None - popups ....
  And the other options will reinstate popups after choosing None - popups ....

On its Hyperlinks / Text tab it offers:

• Any URL in user supplied javascript should not be converted.
• If your web pages have any tabulated columns, then the column separator can be chosen, and the data should be formatted into columns.

[craigmollekin]

This looks very exciting. Thanks for creating this. I'll try it out tonight and report back

Craig

[craigmollekin]

Hi,

I've just used this and generated a new site: http://mollekin.net/familytree/war/index.html

The plugin works perfectly.

The search box looks great with the description.

No pop ups occur and the cursor doesn't even turn into a hand/grabber.

The URLs open without affecting the code that I added.

I think the website is really enhanced with these features. The search box is really clever; better than my original suggestion.

Craig

[tatewise]

I have made a few more refinements in version 2.4 dated 16 June 2014:

Index of Names
Added advice for the Surnames Alphabetic Lookup with a tooltip for each letter.
Removed the thin white border around entire alphabet and each letter.
Click any SURNAME on left to return to top, they have tooltip Return to Top.
The Search Filter now updates the list much quicker, especially for long lists.
Fixes a bug when search text included an opening parenthesis (but closing parenthesis still needs an opening parenthesis).

Image Popups
Added a new Dojo Zoomer style of image popup.
All image popop modes now work even if None was chosen in wizard, but images may be too small to be effective.

[tatewise]

This updated Plugin V2.4 is now in the Plugin Store so please download latest refinements from there.

Colin (Valkrider) earlier said it would be useful for one name studies if the surname & forenames could be selected. Well the Search Filter offers that capability, so I would be interested in your feedback.

Technical Note to Jane:-

I reviewed http://kilianvalkhof.com/2010/javascrip ... th-jquery/.
The Comments offer some interesting refinements:
Josh Powell 5 April 2010, 20:12 suggests how to bind the keyup & change events to one function.
Steve Hiner 9 March 2012, 8:53 suggests replacing slideUp() & slideDown() with hide() & show() to make large lists much faster.
Danilo 10 February 2011, 14:26 & setbro 18 February 2011, 0:50 claim "(" does not work in the filter.
This last problem is fixed by jQuery V1.11.1 http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jq ... ery.min.js.

I experienced similar problems to those above and have incorporated all the above refinements into the Plugin.

[craigmollekin]

Hi,

I've just tried this and it works brilliantly, thanks

The Index is quicker and doesn't bounce about like it did before

Fantastic plugin

Craig